Back in the 2k/2k3 days there wasn’t a lot of options in terms of resources. Developers had to rely on rips from other sources (often SNES era RPGs) to customize their tilesets. This led to a lot of clashing aesthetics that often made for visually dissonant games.

Nowadays, RPG Maker users have tons of resource packs to choose from. Many of them are designed with the RTP in mind like the Modern Day and Futuristic tile packs. You can easily plug them into your project with little to no editing required.

If you are going to use custom graphics for your game then you run the risk of having clashing graphics. I’ve seen many projects that have a few custom portraits for the main characters and then Character Generator faces for the supporting cast. This can ruin otherwise appealing art.

When selecting assets for your game consider how well they fit the artistic style. I’d rather have a game that mostly relies on RTP than a mishmash of art styles.

C) Maps that make no sense

One of the major differences between a Good Map and a Bad Map is not just the mapper’s artistic ability. It’s whether the map actually makes sense! Many maps often have strange layouts that would be impractical for NPCs to move around in. They can be too large, too small. Objects can be located in weird locations like having a clock behind a wardrobe. When designing your maps, take the time to consider the layout.

Poor use of depth can ruin a map

Another pitfall I often see is poor use of depth in mapping. This can most often be seen in Mountain locations. Because RPG Maker has a 3/4 top-down perspective it can often be difficult to design locations where the depth changes. Be conscious of the depth of your map when working on uneven terrain or you’ll end up with maps like the one pictured above.

D) Bad tutorial or NO tutorial

Often RPG Maker developers design their game with the assumption that the player is familiar with RPG Maker games. This is a pretty dangerous assumption to make. When designing the introductory section of your game, you should assume the player has never played a RPG Maker game before. You want to point out the basics like Controls (“Press X to access the Menu”) or how to navigate the menus. You should also give the option to skip these tutorials for seasoned players.

A common pitfall with tutorials is front-loading too much information. If your game relies on unconventional mechanics or terms, then you want to slowly roll them out so that the player can comprehend and retain them. If it’s a huge info dump all at once then the player will have difficulty remembering important details.

Adding a Game Manual to the project folder or putting one in-game as a key item is also a good idea and a useful resource for players. Just assume most players won’t read them.

E) Poor pacing or lack of engagement

One of the biggest pitfalls is poor early pacing in RPG Maker games. Many RPG Maker developers create introductory sections that offer no challenge or interesting mechanics. You don’t want to overload the player at first but you don’t want to bore them either.

When talking about RPGs, particularly commercial ones, you might hear someone say “The real game starts 10 hours in!” There are tons of other RPGs that are engaging early on. Just look at classics like Chrono Trigger or Earthbound for example.

Nick has written an excellent article on Pacing: How Is It So Good: Chrono Trigger. Consider reading it for tips on how to properly pace your RPG and keep your player engaged.

F) Frequent missing in combat

You know what’s not fun in RPGs? Losing a turn because you missed your opponent.

The high risk, high reward character or skill is fairly common in RPGs. You either have a chance to do high damage or no damage. Even if you crunched the numbers and the results are favorable, it still can give the player a bad impression of an character or skill if it misses often. If you’re going to have missing in your game make sure it doesn’t happen too often.

The default HIT is set to 95%

By default, the HIT % of any class is 95%. Consider bumping this up to 100% and changing it for weapons/skills or have it affected by states instead. Otherwise, it will apply to all actions that can miss.

G) Too much RNG or “false difficulty”

RNG has become a fairly common term when griping about game balance. “Screwed by the RNG”. When players say something like that they’re referring to the “random number generator” that is present in many games. The root of RNG in RPGs can be traced back to dice rolling in D&D. RNG can make a game more interesting by creating unpredictable elements. It can also make games feel unfair when done poorly.

Many novice RPG designers fall into the pitfall of relying too much on RNG to make their game difficult. When designing the AI for your enemies, you should weigh the chance they will select certain actions over others and what results that can lead to. At some point it becomes almost impossible to predict every variation but even a cursory review can reveal potential balance issues.

Does RNG improve your game experience or detract from it?

If your RNG is too wide in range it can lead to vastly different player experiences. In one of my friend’s early games, he had a final boss who had the chance to use a buff that would increase all his stats making him much more difficult.What made it worse was the buff could stack. If he didn’t cast the buff then the fight was fairly trivial. If he cast it more than once then it became almost impossible. It was completely random whether or not he would use the buff. It would have been better to have had him cast the buff at certain intervals in the battle (every X turns, HP < X%).

When designing encounters you want controlled randomness. The random factor should improve the overall encounter; not take away from it.

H) Too much exposition

Exposition is a tough balance in RPGs. You need to share important plot details with the player to give context to the game but you also don’t want to bore the player with walls of text.

Volrath has written an excellent article on this subject: Exposition: A Tough Balance. Make sure to read it for tips on how to balance exposition in your RPG.

I) Poor spelling/grammar

One of Nick’s 4 Ways to Turn Me Off Your Game Immediately. It’s worth taking the extra time to review your writing for spelling and grammatical errors. One here or there is forgivable but if it keeps coming up it’s going to start making your game look lazy.

Engrish can ruin an otherwise good game

Hopefully this article revealed some pitfalls you might have missed in the past.

What are some pitfalls you’ve noticed on the path of RPG creation? Let us know in the comments!

Comments on this entry are closed.

William Johnson

Informative blog 🙂 thanks! Makes me want to reevaluate my game a bit to make sure I’m not slipping into some of these…

Michael Marsigne

I agree with all points 🙂 good article 🙂

David Ruckman

Man, I SUCK at spelling. The rest of these should be easy to follow, though.

Jan Michael Hitosis

I do think KH2 is a good example of an engaging intro… I was playing the part with Roxas for around two hours having total fun thinking it’s really already the main part of the story just to know that it was actually just an intro…

Kyle B. Stiff

One thing I rarely hear in discussions on RPG Maker is working in a team to cover your weaknesses. I think the reason most stories in RPG Maker are weak or riddled with awful spelling is because the people who tend to get into game development aren’t writers. They’re graphics and gameplay people. Game makers, don’t try to “wing it” when it comes to story! Find someone who can write. Even young writers have a ton of story ideas sitting in a notebook somewhere. And let’s face it, if you’re not a writer, then the story you’re putting together is just going to be rehashed elements of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy, and maybe a little Persona if you’re edgy. So go find a writer with some original ideas!

I avoid teams because of my own commitment issues, but if you have the drive for working on a team, its great for covering weaknesses.

ThugOnAshelf

My biggest issue is not understanding the map packs. Sometimes I have to make a map just to experimenet what is actually a path, a roof, or how in the world to make a town not look like a final fantasy 1 rip off. Spelling and alignment of text is another one. On top of it, size of maps can be tricky because you don’t really know how it’s going to feel until you wall around in it.
My advice is to spend some quality time creating a bunch of towns that serve no purpose to get a feel for the whole creation process. Also, use a text editor and have someone proof read all of your text before adding it. I think to many people start from scratch and try to build a game instead pre-writing and creating a story before creation.

Aether Skyline

spelling is something really hard for me.
My native language is Spanish and my second language is Italian. So I can make personalities with more depth in those languages, but when I try to translate them to English, I lost that personalities on the process :/

My two past games had a minimal use of languages (from npcs) and the actual one have much more characters, so that’s my struggle right now

Michael_Ponder_JR

I refuse to start games with tutorials about every damn little thing.
I HATE THAT about modern games!
Every game sits there teaching you like you’re a damn moron.
I rather just write an external document that can be opened and read to learn these things…